Cambridge is crowded and clotted with the glow of memories. Delays announced. Freight haulers stop and stare as I board the train and look out at the city of my birth. A whistle – punctuation and we pull away past buildings with turned backs and bridges wearing socks – do not tramp.

Foxton – cars wait as my train dribbles across the chalky swelling of East Anglia.
I flick through a magazine with half a brain – there is not much there to relieve the dragging soup of time.

Shepreth is the rhythm of the wheel on the track – hypnotic. I dream of things I’ve left behind. I try to sleep but the brakes squeal and I look up to a mother and son picnicking on the platform – egg and cress sandwiches watched by passengers, cameras, and British Rail officer with a buttonhole carnation.

Meldreth, I imagine speed as the train unfolds past the furrows that mimic the tractor
flapping with gulls white and rooks black.

Royston – clouds blue. In my eyes the sun sparks from cars. A man enters the train carrying aftershave and delays due to emergency overhead work. He apologises and puts his feet on the table.

Ashwell and Morden. We pull away through the old man’s beard and yellow trees, disturbing birds that prowl the rosehips and swear at the engine.

Baldock – my eyes roll over the underground map on the wall of the train. I do the concept of a pub crawl – downing a Pernod and ice at each of the stations on the Circle Line until I’m dizzy and sick.

Letchworth – an Intercity squeals past – life in the fast lane bound for Kings Cross. Thrashing engines shake the carriage. Diesel-fist scorn then it’s gone. In the swirling, a redhead climbs aboard. Her feet don’t touch the floor. In the train’s motion the knotted tassles of her skirt swing with her feet. Her hand is heavy with jewellery and it rests on knee like a dragon’s hoard.

Hitchin – soft masked, the sun breaks through the tainted mist. An eye, lifeless and insecure that flusters amusing the oil-kissed girders and sleepers. Finger the station with brightness inept. Caresses the fumes and dreams – windows scrape through September.

Stevenage – I knew a man from here. He was unpredictable and inept. I wouldn’t lend him money again. A fairy slides aboard. It spirals into the opposite seat, eager to avoid the pneumatic drill that yells from the station.

Thank you very much indeed. Definitely praise coming from you.
Yes I have written much longer stuff. There is a novel called 400 Years Between stars which I am currently hawking around the publishers and agents. But I am tending towards brevity, at the moment, as next year I hope to go and study prose poetry at university.

I was writing – it was one of those hours that seems to take about 4.5 minutes. Certainly if the people of Ashwell and Morden wanted to have a new set of station toilets opened by a relatively unknown writer I would be happy to oblige.